When students get off the bus for an after-school class at the Shalom Center, some bound through the door.

Others, the middle-schoolers mostly, circle the block — sometimes even the neighborhood — before heading inside, so no one will know where they’re going.

The center’s program might fill an important gap in their lives. But having friends, peers, even teachers, know that they’re in that program because they’re homeless reflects the hole inside themselves they don’t necessarily want to face.

It’s part of the reason teacher Fran Anderson carefully selects the 29 tutors who work one-on-one with her students.

It’s the reason a positive approach is the rule in her classroom. And it’s the reason Anderson so vehemently guards against intrusions that might unsettle or distract her students.

“The main thing I have to do is gain the trust of these kids,” said Anderson, a Kenosha Unified School District teacher who oversees “The Classroom” at Shalom Center, which offers individual instruction four days each week for children living in Shalom’s Emergency Family Shelter and, when space is available, children living in the Interfaith Network Nightly Shelter, or INNS.

“We just want the very best for them,” Anderson said. “We want them to succeed in school in every way, whether that means getting better in reading, writing and math, or learning behavioral patterns, or learning basic classroom survival skills.”

‘Teach without shame’

Accomplishing all that — and, Anderson insisted, she does with the help of her tutors — starts with one rule.

“Teach without shame,” Anderson said.

That means if a child swears, volunteers are taught to avoid phrases like, “Never say that.”

Instead, Anderson said, “we say that is not appropriate.” Children are then offered an alternative word to replace the swear. The approach, she said, both corrects the behavior and increases awareness for a group of children often told “Do this! Don’t do that!” without reason or context.

Anderson chooses volunteers partly on their ability to re-wire their brains to the approach. She also requires a four-hour introductory training, which she supplements daily.

And she demands a willingness to praise and clap hands; cheerleading skills are especially important for Anderson’s tutors, especially in the “Math Corner,” an isolated part of the classroom with just enough room for Anderson, a tutor, a student and a whole lot of concentrated effort.

“It’s a lot of cheerleading back there. You’re doing a ton of cheerleading and a ton of teaching to teach math and not just have them memorize it,” Anderson said.

Reading out loud

“The Classroom” is open to children roughly kindergarten-age, 4, to 12th grade, although most teenagers stop coming after 10th grade, Anderson said.

A team of typically nine tutors, along with Anderson, works with as many as 15 students for at least three hours each day after school.

Each afternoon, class starts with students finishing homework from their daytime schools. From there, they shift to reading and math.

Reading is phonics-influenced, with students reading aloud to tutors, who help them break words into syllables and learn to drop their voices at the end of a sentence to mark the end of a complete thought.

A quiz gauges students’ comprehension of what they just read, which is then articulated in a one-paragraph report.

“It gets them writing every day,” Anderson said.

Math focuses on addition, subtraction, multiplication, division — the mechanics of math.

“Most of my children, if they are struggling with math, it’s not because they can’t understand the process of math. It’s because they are weak in their computation,” Anderson said.

Students practice those skills behind a collection of file cabinets in the “Math Corner.” With two-on-one help — Anderson and a tutor join one student at a time — students practice what they were taught without peer pressure, prying eyes or the fear of embarrassment in front of the class.

Tutors eat with students

Anderson spends half her day in the classroom. The other half is spent training tutors and preparing individualized lesson plans for students.

Nestled among the Three Rs is a heavy dose of what Anderson calls “environmental awareness,” the “how” and “why” glue that holds together the “what,” “where” and “when” in a child’s mind.

It’s the reason that, when classroom time ends, the teaching continues in the Shalom Center’s soup kitchen, where tutors eat the evening meal with children. During dinner, the kids not only fill their bellies, but also their brains with lessons about nutrition and manners.

It’s the same reason that classroom sessions include lessons on basic U.S. history, the continents and the animal kingdom. By the time students leave the program, Anderson said, “they all know the continents and three things about each continent.”

“It gives them an academic foundation,” she explained. “Why would you know what a pig or cow is if no one taught you?”

Work pays off

The payoff for all the personal attention and individual effort is educational improvement.

“We take them one-on-one. We find out where every single child is, and we bring them up to (grade) level,” Anderson said.

Children have improved two grade levels in three or four months, the average time a family stays in the Shalom shelter.

In that time, students who were using their fingers to add learn to figure sums in their heads, considered standard for second and third grade. Fourth-graders can multiply, and fifth-graders do long division.

They also know how to raise their hands properly. They understand that having a test on Friday does not mean they have no homework on Thursday. It’s the start of learning that the skills they gain will not only help them prepare for tests, but also for life.

For Anderson, that’s the payoff — knowing that her students have the means to succeed.

And they have.

Just ask a middle-school student who, after attending her classes, told Anderson he answered his first ever question at school. The reason he’d never raised his hand before? He didn’t know the answer.

There’s also the student who came back to “The Classroom” full of appreciation for Anderson and her team.

“He said, ‘If it hadn’t been for you teaching me the math facts and teaching me the continents, I never would have made it,’” Anderson said.